What's a good system monitoring tool?

There are many monitoring tools, even built into Windows. But there's one we really like.

There aren’t many utilities that provide the same level of functionality as CAM, which we is a great all-in-one monitoring tool. It lets you see temps, fan speeds, and other stats—and CAM does it all in a sleek package. Also, CAM integrates well with many of NZXT’s hardware products and even offers a mobile app for monitoring your PC on the go.

Why would you want a comprehensive system-monitoring tool? When we have problems it’s a good idea to be able to see exactly what’s going on with our system. Of course, having a perfectly stable system is ideal. But you can never tell when something is about to fail. What if your CPU fan stopped working?

If you want to overclock say your CPU or GPU, there are manufacturer-specific tools to do this, which we recommend you use. For example, MSI's Afterburner is great for overclocking and setting fan profiles on your graphics card. However, CAM also performs GPU overclocking now, and eliminates the need for extra tools.

What makes CAM good?

When your computer is having issues it’s important to be able to access all the important statistics in one place. Typically monitoring all of your components would require multiple applications. Even Windows’ built-in monitoring tools within Task Manager fail to provide a full picture. Task Manager lacks the ability to track fan speeds, pump, and monitor import GPU statistics.

CAM offers the ability to track everything from within one app. You can monitor GPU and CPU temperatures, clock speed and load at the same time. At the bottom of the UI you can also check storage and memory usage. You can even set up alarms in case something fails, and receive notifications on your phone when you're not around your PC.

The full expanded mode provides a more extensive breakdown of statistics, including fan speeds broken down by component, without having to switch between tabs. This mode works best with a multi-monitor setup providing the ability to have CAM running on your second screen while gaming or running benchmarks on the first.

Many monitoring tools provide a simple overlay that provides FPS data, but CAM’s overlay also provides the most important statistics directly below the FPS counter including CPU and GPU temperatures and memory usage. This is the perfect compromise for single monitor users.

CAM goes beyond monitoring with a simple UI for GPU overclocking. While it’s not as comprehensive as dedicated overclocking utilities such as MSI’s Afterburner or Asus’s Tweak, it could eliminate the need for dedicated apps if a simple performance boost is all you’re after.

CAM also works with products from other manufacturers, including Corsair's. This means that if you have a liquid CPU cooler from Corsair, CAM will be able to control and monitor it. Of course, if you have NZXT products like GRID+, and HUE+, CAM plays nicely and expands its interface to accommodate those additions.

If you choose, CAM also connects to CAM cloud servers, and allows you to compare your own system against other CAM users. NZXT has built up a large database of users, and you can now compare your systems performance in specific games against others of similar specs. If you want to see how your current GPU compares to another, you can do that too.

Where can I get it and what are the alternatives?

You can download CAM for free. There aren’t many utilities that provide the same level of functionality as CAM; Intel’s XTU is decent though its main focus is overclocking. It also lacks an overlay and the UI isn’t as versatile as CAM’s.

Windows, of course, has Task Manager, which is good for watching program usage, checking in on startup services and programs, and other Windows functions.